


Ten

by notyourstolose



Category: Anthem - Ayn Rand
Genre: Gen, POV First Person, Ten Years Later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 17:22:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12370428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notyourstolose/pseuds/notyourstolose
Summary: "Ten years after I ran from the city where I had lived my entire life, I went back."





	Ten

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for my English class, and I ended up getting an A on it, so I decided to share.

I know it has been a long time since I have written, but I have often been too busy during the day and too tired at night to be able to do so. But something great has happened, however, and I feel that I must document it. 

I had always planned to return for those that I had left back in the city, and after so many spoiled years and foiled plans, I finally did. 

The night I left, I said goodbye to my wife, Gaea. Our five children were asleep in the next room, so we spoke in hushed voices. “Do you really think that you will be able to bring them back, Prometheus?” she asked me. “I fear that you will not come back safely.”

“Do not worry about me, Golden One,” I said, using the name I once called her so long ago. “What could hurt me? I doubt that anyone there will still remember me, save for my friends, and I can be as quite as a mouse.”

She frowned, but did not say anything else. 

Then, I set off towards the city and the rising sun. It took me quite a while to figure out which direction I should travel in, and for a time I feared that I had become lost. But I soon found my way, and for a long time I walked. When the sun was high in the sky, I found a small stream and sat beside it. 

I rested there for a few minutes, then picked up a stone from the ground beside me. I peered through the branches above. My stomach had been growling for a time, and I decided that I would kill a bird to eat. 

I was very quiet for a few moments, and then I heard a twittering from a nearby tree. I threw the stone I had picked up, and the bird fell out of the tree, dead. I picked it up and carried it over to my spot near the stream, then cleared a spot in the dirt for a fire. I grabbed a few branches that had fallen off the trees near me, and then lit the fire with one of the curious things I found in my house. It is a small blue tube, barely the length of a twig, and when I press down on part of it, it breathes out fire. (I do not know what the people of the Unmentionable Times used it for, but it can set fire to my pile of branches quite easily.)

When the fire was sufficiently large and I could bear no longer to wait, I cooked the bird and ate it. After that, I took a long drink of water from the stream, then continued on my way.

I walked for a long time after, until the sky turned a bright orange and the sun began to set behind the trees. I climbed one, intending to rest there for the night, but its branches cracked under my weight and I tumbled to the ground. I laid there for a few minutes, clutching my arm in pain, then once again attempted to climb a tree once the aching had, for the most part, subsided. 

This time, I chose a sturdier tree (an oak, I believe) and climbed it without much difficulty. I thank every God that might exist that my arm was not broken, for what I had intended to do once I reached the city would have become much more difficult, and I did not intend to give up once again. 

I continued on like this for several days: I woke up with the sun every morning, walked until noon, had a meal of whatever I could catch in the woods, then walked until nightfall. I often (quite understandably) wished that I had one of the horseless wagons of the Unmentionable Times to take me there, as what had taken me more than a week on foot would take them only a few hours, according to the books I had found in the house of those times. It was on the fourth (or maybe fifth) day that I began to see the branches I had broken and footprints I had left when I ran into the then-uncharted forest, still undisturbed after so many years. I knew then that I was close to the city.

I had many decisions to make: when should I enter the city? What path should I take? The streets that I used to sweep had become a blur in my head in the ten years since I had seen them. I wondered if the tunnel that had once been my escape from this world had been discovered yet. Would International 4-8818 have told the Councils? It was no matter, though: I did not intend to stay long enough to need to find out. Finding my friends in the House of the Street Sweepers would not take me long, and I thought that surely they would easily be able to join me out in the forest. 

I thought wrong. 

When I crept out of the forest, I saw a man standing on a street corner. I thought this was rather odd, for I had believed it was past the time when all men are supposed to be asleep when I decided to enter the city. I crouched behind one of the large stone buildings – the Home of the Useless, I believe, but it was hard to tell any of them apart in the dark.

Eventually the man disappeared, and I walked out into the street. It did not take me long to find the Home of the Street Sweepers, but before I tried to enter, I heard footsteps once again behind me, and I ducked down into the shadows. From beneath the prickly bush I hid in, I could see that this man was just like the first - dressed in a gray tunic and leggings, a bow in hand and a quiver slung over his shoulder.

I did not wish to find out how many arrows these men had, nor how accurate their shot was. I thought of Gaea and my children, waiting for me at the big, glass windows of our house, and of Solidarity 5-6347 tossing and turning and crying out in his sleep, and I knew now that I would have to be very, very quiet on my mission. 

I do not know how long I waited, crouched in the bushes. The guard-man walked away, eventually, only to be replaced by another, every single time. I feared that I would be discovered, and that I would not make it home to my family. How worried would they be? Would they think that I was killed by a beast of the forest, or that I had drowned or worse? I resolved to see them again, no matter what I had to do in the city. 

Eventually, when the sun was beginning to rise in the distance, I realized that there had been no guard walking by for some time now. Was this my chance? After scanning my surroundings, I stood up and opened the door of the Home of the Street Sweepers.

Next to the door was the bed of International 4-8818, and though he tried to hide it, I could tell that he was awake. I gently shook him, and his eyes opened in shock.

“Equality 7-2521!" he said. “We have not seen you in a long time.” 

I said, “ I have not see you in a long time, either.” 

“We have missed you,” he said. "Why have you come back to the city? How could you come back?"

“And I, you,” I said. “Do you remember when I left, all those years ago? I made a promise to myself, after I had seen the wonders of the forest. You are not living in this city, International 4-8818. You are simply breathing, existing, and that is no way to live. I have seen and done things there I never would have thought possible. Will you come into the Uncharted Forest with me, International 4-8818?”

He paused for a second. Yes,” he said. 

I smiled, and he did, too. "Do you know where Solidarity 9-6347 sleeps?"

He nodded. 

I spoke to Solidarity 9-6347 and Fraternity 2-5503 in similar fashion, being careful to be quiet enough so that we would not wake any others. And they agreed to come with me, and we crept out of the Home of the Street Sweepers, and we had almost made it out of the city when I heard those same footsteps behind me, and I turned around to see the guard-man from before. He scowled at me, and then he reached for his bag. 

That is the last that I saw of him, however, for I did not spend much time looking at him. After I saw him I grabbed the hand of International 4-8818 and screamed at the others to run. 

The man did not hit any of us, but I saw arrows whizzing past me, and they only made us try to get away faster. We ran for a long time, and for a while after we believed to have escaped from the man we still ran. But eventually we slowed to a walk, and I began to explain all of what I have discovered in the forest. 

We spent a week’s time in the forest, walking and talking, and I taught them how to start fires and how to throw rocks like arrows at birds. We arrived at my house after, and that is where I am writing this now. 

Gaea was very pleased to see me back unharmed (but not without an "I told you so" after I relayed the tale of my experiences in the city), as were my children. From my books, International 4-8818, Solidarity 9-6347, and Fraternity 2-5503 have all chosen new names for themselves - now, they are Apollo, Orpheus, and Atlas.

I think they are happier here than they have ever been in the city, and I know that I am, too.


End file.
